“I’m afraid I’ll never come back,” he said brokenly. “There’s nobody now but me to make a living. You’ve never worked in the mines. You don’t know what it is.”
The other looked down at him quickly, and in an instant understood. For a moment he sat silent, considering his words.
“It seems hard,” he said at last. “It always seems hard when we have to give up something we’ve been counting on. But maybe, after all, we don’t have to give it up; and even when we do, something better almost always comes in place of it. It seems, somehow, that nobody in this world is given more than he can bear. I’ve felt, often, just as you feel now; but when I’m particularly blue, I get out a book called ‘Poor Boys who Became Famous’; and when I read what a tough time most of them had, I come to think I’m pretty well off, after all. Ever read it?”
“No,” answered Tommy; “I never read it.”
“Wait till I get it for you. It’ll give you something to think about, anyway”; and the good-natured official, who had not yet lost the enthusiasms of his boyhood, hurried away to get the book.
Five minutes later Tommy had forgotten all about his own troubles. The first page of the book had opened another life to him, whose struggles made his own seem petty and unimportant. It was of George Peabody he was reading: born at Danvers, Massachusetts, in 1795, his parents so poor they could afford him little schooling; at the age of eleven sent out into the world to earn a living; for four years a clerk in a little grocery, giving every penny of his earnings to his mother; his father dying and leaving him to support the family; his well-nigh hopeless search for employment, his finding of a humble situation, his perseverance, energy, honesty—until, at last, he had built up for himself a mighty business. And then the great acts of benevolence which marked his later years: three hundred thousand dollars for the Peabody Institute at his native town, where a free library and a free course of lectures were to be maintained, in order that other poor boys might be helped to an education; one million dollars for an academy of music and an art-gallery at Baltimore; three millions for the purpose of building comfortable homes for the poor of London; three millions more for the education of the negroes, who had just been freed from slavery and who were groping blindly for the light; scores of smaller gifts to colleges and charitable institutions—until, at last, dead in London, he was mourned even by the Queen of England; Westminster Abbey was opened for his funeral; statesmen and noblemen bowed before his coffin; the noblest man-of-war in her Majesty’s navy was sent to bring the body back to his native land, which was in mourning for him from sea to sea; and, at the end, he was laid to rest beside the mother he had loved so tenderly, his life-work done, his name imperishable.
With a long sigh Tommy closed the book, and sat looking before him with eyes that saw nothing. But his task no longer seemed so difficult. This man had conquered even greater obstacles—why not he? The conductor came by and glanced at him, saw what was in his mind, and passed on without speaking.
At last he turned to the next biography: Bayard Taylor—walking sixty miles to get a poem printed, and failing; living in Europe on a few pennies a day, sometimes almost starving, but always writing, writing, writing, until at last came victory, and a niche in the hall of fame where the great literatures of the world live forever. He read of Watt, of Mozart, of Goldsmith, of Faraday, of Greeley, of Moody, of Childs, of Lincoln. What a galaxy of great names it was! And when at last he laid the book down he could see the dawn just breaking in the east. He sat for a long time looking out at it, watching the sky turn from black to gray, and from gray to purple. The book had stirred him to the very depths of his being.
“You haven’t finished it already, have you?” asked the conductor, coming up behind him.
Tommy nodded.